Just Off Center

In my last post I wrote that I would explain further about the former college buddy of mine who ended up betraying me. I'll give more details here of the sordid tale of Ahmar and the night that led to my suspension from Indiana University. This will be a long one.

Flashback again to the Fall semester of 1995. I was a basically good kid with some very fucked up ideas on life. I had few friends and mostly just kept to myself. I liked it better that way. But now and again I did enjoy the company of someone to bounce thoughts off of and party with. Sophomore year I met a thin, dark-skinned man by the name of Ahmar. He was living in the co-op dorm between the boys and girls towers. His roommate was named Rob, and Rob was a friend of this girl I had been checking out. That girl is my wife.

Ahmar, to the untrained eye, seemed to be quite something. He had a posture and poise that made me think that he came from money. He claimed to be from Tanzenia and he made no qualms about his wealthy bloodline. He was cocky and abrasive, but then so was I. At the time, I couldn't see that he was just a miserable, unloved, petty dick who got off on seducing girls who were too drunk or stoned to know better. We began to hang out and he introduced me to Nina, at her request. From this point on he began a battery of full-on cock blocking. I wish that I could say that this was the betrayal I mentioned in my earlier post, but Nina and I obviously managed just fine, despite his interventions.

Ahmar and I would go out on the hunt for girls pretty regularly. Generally, we'd go to some house party already on its last legs. I'd hit the keg, mingle and flirt and he'd make a B-line straight to the drunkest girl in the room. At the time I was also regularly staying with a girl named Becky, who was basically in love with me but who I considered little more than a fuck buddy/bootycall.

One night we all felt like going out, and Becky had convinced a freshman named Kim two doors down from her to come out with us looking for some fun. We went around the usual apartment complexes, but found nothing going on. In the end we decided to buy some alcohol and just hang out in Becky's room. We stopped at a liquor store and Ahmar (who was 21) bought two bottles of cheap tequila. I never drank tequila. I just can't handle that shit to this day. We went back to Becky's room to watch a movie and just hang out. At least that's what I was going to do.

Becky had once had a roommate, but she had moved out a month or two before that night. So she had been bugging me to take the bunk above her down and place it next to her bed so she's have more room to sleep. When we got up to her room I figured since I had another man there to help me we might as well take the bed down. We put the two beds together and set up the VCR with some flick. We were there just drinking and talking for a while, maybe an hour or more.

I'm a little shady on how things progressed from that point. But what I thought was that we were all still quite sober. I hadn't finished one drink and neither had Becky. Ahmar had a few and Kim had two, but she seemed totally sober and bragged on her ability to hold her liquor. Well that may have been true or not. What was true was that at some point she and Ahmar started making out on the bed which promptly moved to the floor right in front of us. I honestly hadn't even thought about the four of us getting busy that night, but I was always up to try anything once, so I started making out with Becky.

We were laying on the bed against the wall and when we looked over, Kim and Ahmar were naked and she was giving him a blowjob. Ahmar then told me to get behind her and fuck her from behind, but I wasn't going to just get up and start fucking some girl I had just met, at least not without asking first. So Becky and I took our clothes off and I tried to have sex with her...but I couldn't. I just couldn't get it up. I wasn't drunk and I wasn't turned off. It just wasn't happening. Then Kim and Ahmar got on the bed next to us and had sex while we watched. After they were done, they lay there exhausted and blushy. From ceiling view it was me, Becky, Kim, and Ahmar.

Then Ahmar decided he wanted to try out Becky. I didn't care since I really didn't even like Becky very much, and I certainly wasn't in love with her. Ahmar climbed over Kim and started to kiss Becky so I crawled over them to get to Kim. We made out for a minute and then I got on top of her. Before I entered her I asked her point blank "Is this what you want?" She said yes so I started to have sex with her. It seemed I had no trouble getting aroused by Kim, who was much more attractive and new to me. I'm sure this hurt Becky, but I didn't consider it at the time.

Then it was all over. We were all tired so we went to sleep together. That morning Kim was the first to leave. She got dressed and went back to her room. Then we woke up and Becky escorted Ahmar and me out. It was awkward, sure, but I just attributed that to this being my first time being with more than just one person. I went home and life went on as normal until a couple weeks later when I came home from a concert to find an answering machine message from a cop for the Indiana University PD. He wanted to "talk". I didn't know what it would be about, but I figured some weed dealer had gotten himself busted and had dropped my name as a buyer. I'd just lie and leave.

At the station I was told that I was under investigation for raping Kim. I was absolutly beside myself. Why would she say she was raped? She was sober. She had run the bases with Ahmar for half an hour. I asked her fucking permission! As it turns out, Kim had before that night been a virgin. I guess she didn't like the idea of having her first time ocurring in an orgy. She was convinced that she had been raped though. Unfortunately for her, there was no way that the IUPD had a case. It wasn't even pursued legally. Instead Ahmar and I would be charged within the campus legal system. We got our stories straight, and Becky was on our side. Becky was brought up for allowing an illegal transaction in her dorm. She got off with a semester of probation. Ahmar's testimony came the next day and we both showed up to defend him. We said our piece and left.

Ahmar had agreed to do the same for me that next week, when it was my turn. It was important to maintain our solidarity. Except that he never showed. He didn't attend a single date, naver made another statement and then he just disappeared. He packed up in the middle of the night and left town. To this day I have no idea where he is. I was expelled from Indiana University and sent back home to Evansville. What I was told was that the parents of this university need ot feel that they can send their daughter there and that they would be safe. Rapeaccusations were generally dealt with in a biased manner. I was hurt, but since I was on the verge of being academically suspended anyway, it didn't really matter.

Through everything there was Nina. When I got involved with Nina, that is when I realized that she was more to me than just another piece of ass, I decided to stop seeing Becky altogether. But word of mouth got to Becky before I could and she left me a screaming message that she never wanted to see me again. Fine by me. So I left IU and moved back in with my mother. A couple months later I went back to IU for my appeal. It was a totally bullshit charge, and I was going to get that across, even if it changed nothing about my expulsion. I hired a lawyer and went up for my hearing. Nina stayed in her dorm room the entire day waiting for me and listening to the Counting Crows sone 'Anna Begin' , our song, over and over.

The hearing was hard. Kim had come down to testify (she had left IU earlier) with her mother. I had to look them both in the face, and I could see how convinced she was. I didn't challenge her. Even if it was bullshit, taking her on would only hurt her more. Then Becky showed up to testify against me. I could've done without that. But my lawyer ignored what I thought was true and just blamed everything on Ahmar for having orchestrated this whole thing. And maybe he actually did. That got my expulsion lifted and instead I was given two semesters of suspenion and four years of probation should I ever decide to reattend. I didn't.

Instead, I got a job in Evansville, lived with my mother and talked with Nina every night. That summer she came to live in Evansville just to be with me. During a Spring semester visit she made a friend and got her to let Nina sleep on her floor the whole summer. And despite much reservation, that Fall we moved in together. The rest is already known. There are times when I think of it and my feelings swing in all directions. But with each passing year, I realize that for whatever regret I may have I feel absolutley no guilt about that night. Nor do I feel like a victim. It was what it was. I don't wish either of the girls any ill will. But the hatred and need for revenge against Ahmar has been a steady and unwavering line. That might never dwindle until the day I see him again.